The Metro-Dade project replicated an earlier study of
domestic violence, the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment
(SPECIFIC DETERRENT EFFECTS OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC ASSAULT:
MINNEAPOLIS, 1981-1982 [ICPSR 8250]), which was conducted by the
Police Foundation with a grant from the National Institute of Justice.
The Metro-Dade study employed a research design that tested the
relative effectiveness of various combinations of treatments that were
randomly assigned in two stages. Initially, eligible spouse battery
cases were assigned to either an arrest or a nonarrest condition.
Later, cases were assigned either to receive or not to receive a
follow-up investigation and victim counseling from a detective working
with the Safe Streets Unit (SSU), a unit that deals specifically with
domestic violence. Given the various treatment conditions employed,
three types of dependent variables were examined: (1) prevalence--the
proportion of suspects who engaged in repeat incidents, (2)
incidence--the frequency with which repeat incidents occurred, and (3)
"time to failure"--the interval between the presenting incident and
subsequent incidents. Initial interviews were conducted with victims
soon after the presenting incident, and follow-up interviews were
attempted six months later. The interviews were conducted in either
English or Spanish. The interview questions requested detailed
background information about the suspect, victim, and any family
members living with the victim at the time of the interview, including
age, gender, and marital and employment status. Parallel sets of
employment and education questions were asked about the victim and the
suspect. Additionally, the interview questionnaire was designed to
collect information on (1) the history of the victim's relationship
with the suspect, (2) the nature of the presenting incident, including
physical violence, property damage, and threats, (3) causes of the
presenting incident, including the use of alcohol and drugs by both
the victim and the offender, (4) actions taken by the police when they
arrived on the scene, (5) the victim's evaluation of the services
rendered by the police on the scene, (6) the nature of the follow-up
contact by a detective from the Safe Street Unit and an evaluation of
the services provided, (7) the victim's history of abuse by the
offender, and (8) the nature of subsequent abuse since the presenting
incident. Data for Parts 1 and 2 are self-reported data, obtained
from interviews with victims. Part 4 consists of data recorded on
Domestic Violence Continuation Report forms, indicating subsequent
assaults or domestic disputes, and Part 5 contains criminal history
data on suspects from arrest reports, indicating a subsequent arrest.
The police report of the incident and information on the type of
randomized treatment assigned to each case is given in Part 6.

The Metro-Dade project replicated an earlier study of
domestic violence, the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment
(SPECIFIC DETERRENT EFFECTS OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC ASSAULT:
MINNEAPOLIS, 1981-1982 [ICPSR 8250]), which was conducted by the
Police Foundation with a grant from the National Institute of Justice.
The Metro-Dade study employed a research design that tested the
relative effectiveness of various combinations of treatments that were
randomly assigned in two stages. Initially, eligible spouse battery
cases were assigned to either an arrest or a nonarrest condition.
Later, cases were assigned either to receive or not to receive a
follow-up investigation and victim counseling from a detective working
with the Safe Streets Unit (SSU), a unit that deals specifically with
domestic violence. Given the various treatment conditions employed,
three types of dependent variables were examined: (1) prevalence--the
proportion of suspects who engaged in repeat incidents, (2)
incidence--the frequency with which repeat incidents occurred, and (3)
"time to failure"--the interval between the presenting incident and
subsequent incidents. Initial interviews were conducted with victims
soon after the presenting incident, and follow-up interviews were
attempted six months later. The interviews were conducted in either
English or Spanish. The interview questions requested detailed
background information about the suspect, victim, and any family
members living with the victim at the time of the interview, including
age, gender, and marital and employment status. Parallel sets of
employment and education questions were asked about the victim and the
suspect. Additionally, the interview questionnaire was designed to
collect information on (1) the history of the victim's relationship
with the suspect, (2) the nature of the presenting incident, including
physical violence, property damage, and threats, (3) causes of the
presenting incident, including the use of alcohol and drugs by both
the victim and the offender, (4) actions taken by the police when they
arrived on the scene, (5) the victim's evaluation of the services
rendered by the police on the scene, (6) the nature of the follow-up
contact by a detective from the Safe Street Unit and an evaluation of
the services provided, (7) the victim's history of abuse by the
offender, and (8) the nature of subsequent abuse since the presenting
incident. Data for Parts 1 and 2 are self-reported data, obtained
from interviews with victims. Part 4 consists of data recorded on
Domestic Violence Continuation Report forms, indicating subsequent
assaults or domestic disputes, and Part 5 contains criminal history
data on suspects from arrest reports, indicating a subsequent arrest.
The police report of the incident and information on the type of
randomized treatment assigned to each case is given in Part 6.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Dataset(s)

WARNING: Because this study has many datasets, the download all files option has been suppressed, and you will need to download one dataset at a time.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
The Metro-Dade project replicated an earlier
study of domestic violence, the Minneapolis Domestic Violence
Experiment (SPECIFIC DETERRENT EFFECTS OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC ASSAULT:
MINNEAPOLIS, 1981-1982 [ICPSR 8250]), which was conducted by the
Police Foundation with a grant from the National Institute of Justice.
The Metro-Dade study employed a research design that tested the
relative effectiveness of various combinations of treatments that were
randomly assigned in two stages. Initially, eligible spouse battery
cases were randomly assigned to either an arrest or a nonarrest
condition. Later, cases were randomly assigned either to receive or
not to receive a follow-up investigation and victim counseling from a
detective working with the Safe Streets Unit (SSU), a unit that deals
specifically with domestic violence. Initial interviews were
conducted with victims soon after the presenting incident, and
follow-up interviews were attempted six months later. The interviews
were conducted in either English or Spanish. Given the various
treatment conditions employed, three types of dependent variables were
examined: (1) prevalence--the proportion of suspects who engaged in
repeat incidents, (2) incidence--the frequency with which repeat
incidents occurred, and (3) "time to failure"--the interval between
the presenting incident and subsequent incidents.

Study Design:
A Domestic Violence Committee, comprised of
representatives drawn from the Metro-Dade Police Department, the State
Attorney's office, the Dade County Department of Human Resources, the
Victims Advocate Program, the Domestic Intervention Program, and the
Police Foundation, assisted in the implementation of the field study.
The Domestic Violence Committee established the following criteria to
determine the eligibility of cases: (1) probable cause for misdemeanor
spouse battery existed, (2) the couple involved were spouses or former
spouses, (3) the victim was a female 18 years of age or older, (4) no
felony had occurred, (5) victim and subject were both on the scene
upon the officers' arrival, (6) victim was not in immediate danger,
(7) officer was not assaulted by subject or victim, and (8) there were
no outstanding arrest warrants, injunctions, or criminal protective
orders for the victim or the subject. At the time the data collection
phase began, the Florida misdemeanor spouse battery law, which
permitted police to make arrests for incidents that did not occur in
their presence, applied only to spouses or former spouses. In early
1989, following changes made in the relevant Florida statutes, the
case eligibility criteria were expanded to include domestic batteries
involving unmarried couples. Random assignment to the
arrest/nonarrest condition was accomplished with the use of the police
department's computerized dispatch system. In the event that the
computer system was not operational, dispatchers were provided with a
set of sealed envelopes that contained randomly determined
arrest/nonarrest treatments. If the case was assigned to an arrest
condition, the suspect would be arrested for battery on a spouse. If
the case was assigned to the nonarrest condition, the officers on the
scene would provide the victim with a brochure explaining her legal
rights and remedies and leave the scene. For those cases assigned to
receive SSU contact, background checks were conducted to determine
whether the disputants had been involved in previous incidents, what
referrals had been made, whether the referral agencies had been
involved in the case, and what remedial steps had been taken. The SSU
detective assigned to a particular case interviewed the victim and
discussed the presenting incident and the circumstances surrounding
it, clarifying the ultimate consequences of prolonged continuation of
such behavior. The detective would then make either a passive or
active referral to one or more agencies capable of providing
assistance to the disputants. In the case of a passive referral, the
initiative was left to the disputants to make contact with the sources
of support. In the case of an active referral, the detective
personally made appointments for or physically took one or more of
the disputants to the most relevant agency. The initial and six-month
interviews were conducted only by female interviewers, since all of
those interviewed were female and given the sensitive nature of the
subject matter. Each victim was sent a letter informing her that an
interviewer would contact her to arrange for an interview and that she
would receive $20 for her participation in the survey. (An increase
in the incentive to $25 boosted the response rate by 15 percent during
the second month of the interviewing process.) Interviews were
conducted either in person or by telephone. In-person interviews were
conducted either in the victim's home or, for reasons of safety or
convenience, at a location other than the victim's home (e.g., the
SSU office).

Sample:
Every case of domestic assault that met the
selection criteria was selected for inclusion in the study.

Data Source:

personal interviews and police records

Description of Variables:
The initial interview questionnaire produced by
the Police Foundation integrated a set of core items supplied by the
Program Review Team for the National Institute of Justice with
additional items concerning spouse abuse issues. The questions
requested detailed background information about the suspect, victim,
and any family members living with the victim at the time of the
interview, including age, gender, and marital and employment status.
Parallel sets of employment and education questions were asked about
the victim and the subject. Additionally, the questionnaire was
designed to collect information on (1) the history of the victim's
relationship with the suspect, (2) the nature of the presenting
incident, including physical violence, property damage, and threats,
(3) causes of the presenting incident, including the use of alcohol
and drugs by both the victim and the offender, (4) actions taken by
the police when they arrived on the scene, (5) the victim's evaluation
of the services rendered by the police on the scene, (6) the nature of
the follow-up contact by a detective from the Safe Street Unit and an
evaluation of the services provided, (8) the victim's history of abuse
by the offender, and (9) the nature of subsequent abuse since the
presenting incident. The questionnaire for the six-month follow-up
interview was an abbreviated version of the initial interview: it
focused on the relationship between the victim and the offender and
any recidivistic behavior on the part of the offender since the
initial interview. The follow-up questionnaire was designed also to
suggest whether the actions taken by the police and the detective from
the Safe Streets Unit had any impact on the relationship. Data for
Parts 1 and 2 are self-reported data, obtained from interviews with
victims. Part 4 consists of data recorded on Domestic Violence
Continuation Report forms, indicating subsequent assaults or domestic
disputes, and Part 5 contains criminal history data on suspects from
arrest reports, indicating a subsequent arrest. The police report of
the incident and information on the type of randomized treatment
assigned to each case is given in Part 6.

Response Rates:
A total of 907 incidents were considered
eligible cases. Of these, initial interviews were completed with 554
complainants, or 61 percent. Follow-up interviews were obtained from
321 complainants, or 58 percent.

Presence of Common Scales:
None.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1995-03-16

Version History:

2006-03-30 File CB6008.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2006-03-30 All files were removed from dataset 13 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.